Emerging television (TV) technologies such as teletext, compatible high definition TV, and interactive videodisc systems often require that digital information be encoded for transmission for broadcast or recording and later decoded by a television signal processing system such as a television receiver, videodisc player or VCR. It is desirable to send the digital information over the same channels that are currently used for normal television signals. Unfortunately, most of the available information space in a standard television signal is used by the video signal itself, leaving only the horizontal and vertical blanking intervals as convenient areas for inserting digital information. However, the blanking intervals are relatively short, and consequently the amount of digital information that can be placed therein is limited. Thus, for applications such as interactive videodisc systems which utilize a relatively large amount of digital data the blanking intervals may be inadequate.